Damming up rivers only produces a fraction of the electricity we consume. There aren’t enough rivers to dam up to keep up with demand, and even if there were, we’d be doing environmental damage by blocking spawning routes and causing similar issues.
I can second that. My mother grew up in corn country in Illinois, and she has told me the corn they grow there isn’t meant for human consumption.
Meh, I dunno. I think WA generates something like 60% of the electricity it consumes through hydro. I realize there are parts of the country that don’t have the Columbia River to harness for power, but anywhere there’s a flowing river there’s an opportunity to generate electricity. Cleanly. The environmental damage caused by dams must pale in comparison to the ugly mess made by mining and burning coal. I say leave that to the emerging countries. If you’ve got to burn something burn gas.
But I realize our dam-building days are unfortunately behind us.
As for corn, anyone who has mistakenly cooked and taken a bite of an ear of field corn will never forget the taste.
Many of the dams built by the Tennessee Valley Authority have had to have been dismantled, and the environmental impacts of damming are more comprehensive than can be summarized in a mere assumption about coal.
It’s a lot easier to damage a delicate ecosystem than you might think. Unfortunately, such damage is a lot harder and more expensive to repair than it is to create in the first place.
Here is are a few articles that explain some of what I’m talking about:
Oh, I have no illusions about what dams do to the ecosystems. I am fully aware of the consequences of damming rivers, not only to the fish and wildlife in the area but to areas downstream that rely on flow and to the displaced communities above the dam. They have a cost–biologically, economically, geologically, culturally. But let’s not put the needs of the ecosystem above the needs of the people living in it.
People working at hydro plants don’t die of black lung, there are no tailings left to poison local water supply, hydro plants don’t emit CO2 and particulate matter into the air. And once the dam is built, it will provide electricity for lifetime after lifetime.
Hydro power to make electricity to charge your Tesla makes sense to me. Burning coal to do it, not so much.
In my view those things are symbiotically linked. You mess up the people’s ability to live in the environment when you abuse it.
Rather than compare hydroelectric power to coal, I compare it to solar and wind, both of which are just as renewable as hydro, but with less environmental impact.
…at least as far as we know. Like with hydro power, we’re learning that wind farms also have unexpected environmental impacts.
I can’t think of a less environmentally friendly way to produce energy than to burn coal. From the miners who produce it dying of black lung disease before they reach their 60th birthday, to the megatons of pollutants spewed into the air and waterways by coal-fired power plants, to the mountains of ash which are prone to catastrophic slides into nearby waterways, burning coal should be on the top of the EPA’s list of things to eliminate in the next decade. Not reduce. ELIMINATE.
Unfortunately, voters have an inexplicable tendency to vote against their own self-interests. Legislation to accomplish the goal of doing away with the burning of coal for energy could have been passed years ago were it not for the powerful lobbyists, many whom are congressional retirees who went straight from capital hill to their office in a lobbying firm. Lining their own pockets at the expense of our environment.
I think coal is in a class all of its own when it comes to destroying the environment. I think hydro, nuclear and wind combined do not pose the threat to the environment that coal does. Yes, there have been mistakes made as it relates to the injudicious building of hydro locks and dams. But nothing compares to the devastation reeked by the coal industry. And that’s the reason that I find so little environmental advantage to all-electric cars. Until the percentage of electricity produced by coal-fired generating plants is 0, I have difficulty identifying electric cars as a solution to the energy crisis.
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Certainly linked but not equal. The wants and needs of mankind come before the wants and needs of the ecosystem. I don’t dispute climate change or the fact that a great deal of it is man-made. But it’s not the end of the world. We’ll find a way to deal with it.
Somewhere I read that 99% of all species that have lived on Earth are extinct. They have come and gone. Salmon, spotted owls, humans, passenger pigeon, etc., all have their time to come and go.
Davidpsr I agree 100% I WAS BORN & RAISED IN THE MTNS. IN COAL COUNTRY WE heated & cooked with coal. I hated the smell & fumes from burning coal & the dust from pile to the basement & also the re movel of the ashes. I knew many people who died from black lung. That is why when I left home I moved where there was no coal mines.
You don’t have the Columbia river. Fish ladders help the salmon spawn. The biggest threat to the salmon is hungry sea lions. We have been selling excess electricity to California for decades. Like I already posted “A large amount of the U.S. is unfortunately not suitable for hydroelectric power”!!!
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Spotted owls are a sore spot with me. A campaign built on exaggerations and outright lies that helped destroy the timber industry in Oregon and Washington which is potentially as much a renewable resource as corn. My cousin who was a tree faller told me of a spotted owl sitting in a tree (re-prod, planted by man) that he cut down. Instead of flying away the owl rode it to the ground and died. Some species become extinct because they are to stupid to survive. Humans seem to be going in that direction. There have been several pedestrians killed recently in this area. Walking across an interstate, crossing a busy 40mph street 20 feet away from a marked crosswalk, and crossing against the signal lights. I almost forgot walking down railroad tracks with their headphones on. Charles Darwin was absolutely correct.
I’m saying this from a tourist’s point of view, but the Oregon coast used to be my wife and I’s favorite vacation place of all time. It is SO beautiful and not ravished by unrestricted overbuilding like Gatlinburg, TN which is its own undoing. You couldn’t pay me enough money to visit Gatlinburg during the peak tourist season.
That said, we thought it quaint that there were more log trucks on the winding roads through the mountains than there were automobiles. But the timber industry in WA and OR has been destroyed??? I haven’t been back since my wife passed away in 2012. But you mean there used to be MORE logger trucks on the road than there were then? I can’t imagine that the logging industry has been ‘destroyed.’ And certainly not because the Spotted Owl was near extinction.
Your portrayal of an entire species of beings as ‘too stupid to survive’ implies that there’s nothing anyone could do to protect the species from themselves is simply, as you put it, based on exaggeration if not an outright lie. Darwin’s theory hinges on the survival of the fittest. Not the extinction of the stupidest.
Comparing the intelligence of man to any other creature is ludicrous. We have the wherewithal to impact our environment like no other being on earth. Granted, we have not been very judicious in our handling of that prerogative. But make no mistake aobut it: The decisions we make today will have a profound effect on the earth that we leave for our children and grandchildren.
Field/feed corn no bueno! most of our vegetables have been Genetically Modified Organisms for centuries. They would otherwise be inedible or even poisonous. Organic? When I was a child pesticides were a major food group. At the age of 8 I would catch the bus (automotive related) at dawn to the fields and pick strawberries returning home by dinner time. Of course the berries had been crop dusted with dust still on them. I would wipe some of it off before popping them in my mouth.
Yeah, it doesn’t make it right but I recall walking around with a 5 gallon pail of 2,4-D in one hand and a sandwich in the other. And then driving an old Dodge truck with a sprayer mounted on the bed up and down wheat fields in Montana. At 12 years old.
The timber industry in Oregon was destroyed by the late 1980s. I haven’t seen a loaded log truck since the early 1990s until this year when I have seen 2 or 3. I’m still trying to figure out where they are going since nearly all the saw mills have been closed for years and there are none left anywhere close to where I live. By the way Darwin’s theory of survival of the fittest/smartest conversely implies extinction of the weakest/stupidest although Charles Darwin did not use the phrase “Survival of the fittest.” Don’t worry about the spotted owls being extinct we still have many more than we need.